House Sets Gun Control Vote In Repsonse To Democratic Pressure

Democratic pressure on gun control is at least forcing Republicans to go on record and hold votes. The dramatic sit-in in the House has apparently led Paul Ryan to schedule some sort of vote on gun control when the House reconvenes next week. And last week, there was a small break in the firewall of Republican Senators as eight of them joined with Democrats in voting for the ban on gun sales for those on a terrorism watch-list.  Now clearly some of those Senators took a CYA vote so they could say they voted for these restrictions in the knowledge that the bill would go down to defeat anyway.  Whether they would vote that way if the bill actually had a chance to pass remains to be seen.

Just as in the Senate, the upcoming vote in the House will go nowhere. But it is clear that Democrats will continue to hold Republicans’ feet to the fire on this issue through November. The real question is whether that pressure will continue after the election and on into next year. And to some degree, whether that happens or not, depends largely on how badly vulnerable Republicans fare in the fall and how much pressure gun control advocates keep putting on Democrats to keep fighting on this issue after the election.